


Little Bird

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Abortion, Demon Pregnancy, Erotic, F/M, Haunting, Seduction, Sex, Spirit - Freeform, Victorian mental health, cut wife of Ballentree moor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 12:55:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15171206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: Long before Vanessa went to Joan Clayton to learn about being a Daywalker, she went to her for special help. The Cutwife told Vanessa she could help her, but she would never be completely free of whatever had taken root in her womb. Indeed, there is a spirit that follows Vanessa in different forms, throughout all her days.Set post Season one Episode five, Closer Than Sisters.





	Little Bird

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: trigger warning for pregnancy loss and abortion. While I have attempted to deal with this subject matter artfully and compassionately, it can still be challenging for some. If this is difficult for you, please take care of yourself and maybe chose not to read on. 
> 
> Comments are welcome and I try to respond to everyone. Thank you so much for reading my work. 
> 
> xoxo, SS.

Some days the spirit that follows Vanessa is like a cat. It slinks languidly around her ankles and purrs and seems to want either to comfort of be comforted. If she could, she’d pick it up and hold it to her heart, pet its fur with long, slow strokes. 

Other days it is like a butterfly that flits about her head in the sunlight and does not stay still for more than a moment, no matter how much Vanessa wants it to stop and stay still so she can see and admire it. 

That’s the way with spirits. They don’t stay still. You can’t see them for long. The moment you sense their flicker, they are elsewhere. 

It pains her. 

To know a thing, and yet to not know a thing at all is a sort of torture. 

Still other days, the spirit is like an angry hornet. It buzzes accusingly around her and stings her relentlessly. Vanessa scratches at the welts that rise up on her arms and legs and shoulders and even on her belly. Especially on her belly. They itch and burn and can not be soothed with cool water, or aloe, or anything. 

The Cutwife said it would be so. 

“This is no babe,” she’d said, her fingers wiggling against Vanessa’s uterus and making her ovaries ache. “I can take it out, but you’ll never be free of it.”

“Do it then,” Vanessa had hissed.

“Very well. Pull up your skirts and lay down on the tarpaulin,” the Cutwife sighed. Vanessa did as she was told and the Cutwife unfolded her leather bound parcel of tools. “It’ll hurt. You can scream. Most of them do. Or bite on this and imagine it’s his cock,” she said handing her a rag she’d soaked in whiskey. Vanessa pushed her hand away. “No?” The Cutwife shrugged and shoved Vanessa’s knees apart. “Open up your legs then, girl. I know you’re no stranger to it.”

“Please don’t be cruel to me,” Vanessa whispered as the tears started to flow. “I’ve cruelty enough to walk with me until the end of my days.” 

The Cutwife had regarded her, her two-toned eyes gleaming in the light. “Are you certain you wish for this course? Babe or not, this thing was created out of something akin to love.”

“I am certain,” Vanessa said. She had lay there and thought a little of her family, of the shame it would bring them. But mostly she had thought of Mina and had thought of what Mina would have said if she had known, if Mina had seen her skirts hitched up in the darkness in the maze, if Mina had heard how loudly she’d cried out as she climaxed in his arms, wave upon wave of pleasure wracking her body until she could barely stand. “Do it.” She saw the hesitation in the gray eye and the willingness in the orange eye. “Do it! I won’t be sorry after, I swear it. Just be done with it.” She turned her head to the side so as not to look in her eyes, not in either one, again. 

Vanessa heard the clink of metal and felt a cold protrusion between her thighs. The Cutwife poked around to open her lips and find passage inside. Vanessa felt a metallic chill, then the stubborn resistance of pain before the hook pierced through her membrane and tugged at whatever it could. She did not scream. 

She brought her hands to her head and pulled at her hair. It was growing out. It was almost to her shoulders now. She tugged on it and bit her lips and tasted the salt of blood and tears. 

“If you need to lose consciousness, don’t fight it. I’ll wake you later,” the Cutwife said and this time her voice was not unkind. Vanessa felt her scrape at her insides as though she were going at a bowl for last bits of left over jam and cream. Vanessa whimpered slightly but she did not scream. Nor did she lose consciousness. 

Vanessa twirled her hair in her fingers and licked her lips. She sniffed back great gobs of snot and she shuddered. “Stay still, girl. Stay still.” The Cutwife murmured and put a hand on Vanessa’s knee as she worked, and this time her touch was infused with kindness. “What did he do to you, girl? What on earth did he do?” 

Vanessa wept, and almost laughed, as she considered the bitter irony. For all of the things they had cut from her at the Banning Clinic- her hair, bits of her skull and brain, her dignity- they had not thought to take her womb. So when he came to her, she was not only intact, but fecund as a pomegranate. Her old friend. A demon dressed in a suit once so well worn with love. Oh she’d loved him until the fibers of him were near to bare. Was that why she followed him? Was that why she allowed him to lift her skirts and twist her legs around his thick, familiar waist? Time after time she’d followed him into the maze, like a deviant returning to view their handiwork at the scene of a crime. She sought him out and fucked him as hard and deep as she possibly could, not even thinking of the consequences, but just of her feral desire, that maybe it could bring her somehow back to something. Another time? Another place? Who knew. She’d been sick and weak. 

Even now, as she endured this feminine massacre, her eyes rolled back in her head and she felt her heart race, wanting him. Even. Now. When she closed her eyes she saw his face, but not the luminous, black eyes and languid voice. No. She saw the gray-green of the sea. Even. Now. He would forever be her own pulse. 

As the Cutwife did her work, Vanessa tried to pray, but she found her lips too weak to make the words, even in whispers. She felt a gush between her legs and heard the ocean in her head and suddenly she was there, walking on the sand, chasing after him. As she always would. 

“You can wake up now, girl.” 

Vanessa opened her eyes. A fire was lit. She was still on the floor, but there was a small cushion under her head and she was covered with a quilt. There was another, larger cushion under her knees and feet. “Where? Where is it?” 

“I’ve done away with it. It nearly killed you. Are you going to tell me what that was?”

“No. I don’t know.” Vanessa raised her head slightly and the Cutwife gave her some water. “Have I slept long?” 

“Three days.”

“I’ll pay you extra for your dutiful service.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort. When the time is right, you will be back.” The Cutwife lit a pipe and puffed at it. The smoke filled the cottage with an herbal incense that was pleasant and comforting to Vanessa, as though she’d known it before. Vanessa tried to sit, but the Cutwife pushed her back. “You’ve had a steady flow of blood which I’ve finally managed to stop, but you’ll need to stay still. Are you in pain?” 

Vanessa looked up at her and the tears streamed from her eyes relentlessly. “Yes,” she whispered, wanting for all her heart to hold his hand and nothing more. The Cutwife frowned at her, then hobbled around the cottage and mixed something into a mug which she brought back to Vanessa. She commanded her to drink it, and Vanessa obeyed. 

“You’ll sleep again now.” 

As she drifted off, Vanessa thought she felt her forehead being stroked with an uncommon tenderness. 

When she was prepared to leave, the Cutwife told her something. “The thing I took from your belly was cursed. It did not want to leave you, nor did it want to release its hold on your spirit. I performed some charms on it to vanquish its darkness, and I cast it into the fire. But it is as I told you on the first day you were here; you will never be free of it entirely. You’ll know it in different ways, but it will be with you. Tame it, girl, and it will mostly be tame, you understand?” 

Vanessa nodded. She took both of the Cutwife’s hands in her own. “Thank you,” she said. 

“You’ll be back.”

“Yes.” 

Now, she sits at her desk at Grandage Place. She writes to Mina. Even in her letters she can not tell of this. She knows they are likely letters that will never be read, that will likely wind up in the fire as well, but she still can not put in ink on paper what transpired. 

She can not speak of it with Sir Malcolm. 

It is a pact she keeps with darkness. 

She likes her little spirit best when it is like a bird, when it chatters and flutters by her and she can almost hear it fluff its feathers. She imagines its plumage is bright yellow, the color of buttercups in the sun on a glorious summer day. She imagines it soaring free and then looping back to return to her in a happy arc. Always it returns to her, and she can almost make out its song.


End file.
